Rezoning ordinance for apartments passes on final reading

ANGOLA — Rezoning of an Angola property for apartments geared toward entrepreneurs and artists received its final approval from the Angola Common Council Monday.

The property, 907 S. Wayne St., was originally zoned low-intensity industrial, traditional residential and medium general commercial. It was changed to planned unit development.

This will allow Keller Development and Brightpoint to construct a 50-unit affordable housing apartment complex aimed at artists and entrepreneurs.

Apartments will be two-bedroom and approximately 925 square feet per unit. There will be a parking lot and an additional building constructed for use by the Steuben County Economic Development Corp., which owns the property.

Councilman Dave Olson asked Danelle Beiberstein and Dawn Galloway of Keller Development if, once the ordinance was passed, there would still be substantial discussion with the neighbors about landscape and privacy.

Galloway said they will “meet the ordinance and the neighbors requests.”

Some requests by neighbors from previous meetings was addressed at the July 2 council meeting when Beiberstein presented council with a new layout that had the parking lot for the complex backing up to homes in Reddington Heights instead of the building itself, making it so tenant balconies wouldn’t directly overlook homes.

Previously, residents had been concerned about their privacy. They didn’t want an apartment complex directly overlooking their back yards.

Rezoning of another property had the first of three readings of its ordinance Monday.

In another matter, the Angola Plan Commission forwarded favorable recommendation to the council to rezone property at 207 Jackson St. from medium general commercial to university.

The property is owned by Ralph Trine and was formerly home to Cuneo Car Care.

Rezoning the property will allow a future residential development for townhouses and a parking area for the units.

A single bid for repairs to the wastewater treatment lab and control buildings was opened during the meeting Monday.

Wastewater Superintendent Craig Williams said the engineer’s estimate for repairs, which includes roof work and flooring, is $310,000.

The only bid was from Wagler and Associates. Williams said he suspects Wagler was the only bidder because the scope of the project is so large, it’s a busy construction market right now and because operations of the buildings have to be maintained, so the ability to shut down portions of different systems to do the work is limited.

The project was bid with numerous alternates so Williams can be selective about what work is done to stay in budget. The lowest dollar amount getting all the work in, he said, would be around $353,000.

Council voted to award the bid to Wagler, allowing Williams to approve work to be done in the scope of the budget.